Learning Chinese

Speaking foreign language really does get easier after you have a drink

Speaking foreign language really does get easier after you have a drink

Take a quick tipple and you could find yourself speaking a second tongue more naturally, according to new research.

一项新的研究显示,一杯酒下肚以后,你的外语会说得更加流利.

The foreign language skills of participants in the study were found to be improved after a drink of alcohol, which suggests the way booze can put us at ease outweighs the negative effects on our brain – at least for the first drink, anyway.

The international team of researchers is warning against reading too much into their experiment, but it could reveal some interesting insights into the anxiety associated with speaking another language, and how alcohol can help us overcome it.

"Our study shows that acute alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language in people who recently learned that language," says one of the team, Inge Kersbergen from the University of Liverpool in the UK.

The study involved 50 native German speakers studying Dutch at a Dutch university, who had recently learned to speak, read, and write in the new language.

这项研究招募了50名在荷兰大学学习荷兰语的德国人,他们都是最近才学习荷兰语的听说读写的.

Based on random selections, participants were either given alcohol or water as a control beverage. The amount of alcohol varied based on body size, but was the equivalent of just under a pint (460 millilitres) of 5 percent beer for a 70kg male.

They then chatted to a researcher for five minutes, before an audio recording was assessed by two native Dutch speakers who weren't told whether alcohol had been consumed or not. The participants were also asked to rate their own Dutch language skills over the course of the chat.

While the alcohol didn't affect how the students rated themselves, those people who had been given the alcoholic drink were given better ratings by the observers, especially for their pronunciation.

虽然酒精没有影响学生的自我评价,但评委却认为,喝过啤酒的实验者的荷兰语更好,尤其是发音更标准.

So what's going on? We know that alcohol has a detrimental effect on our brain's executive functioning, including our memory, our attention, and our inhibitions. A lot of these functions are important for speaking a non-native language.

At the same time, we know that booze also improves confidence and reduces social anxiety, which is also helpful when you're trying to talk in another tongue, especially if you've only just learned it.

同时,我们知道,酒精还可以提升饮酒者的自信,缓解社交焦虑.当你试着讲另外一种语言时,这也是有帮助的,特别是如果你只是初学者的话.

"One possible mechanism could be the anxiety-reducing effect of alcohol," says one of the researchers, Jessica Werthmann from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. "But more research is needed to test this."

来自荷兰马斯特里赫特大学的研究人员杰西卡•威尔斯曼称："这其中的原理可能是酒精降低了饮酒者的焦虑感.但我们需要进行更多研究来证实这一点."

With only 50 people involved in the research, we should be wary of making too many generalizations on this study alone, but it's an interesting pointer towards how a little bit of drink could grease the wheels as far as talking in a foreign language is concerned.

"It is important to point out that participants in this study consumed a low dose of alcohol," adds one of the team. "Higher levels of alcohol consumption might not have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language."

一位研究人员称,"需要指出的是,实验对象摄入的酒精剂量很低,酒精摄入量增加可能不会对饮酒者的外语发音产生有益影响."

In other words, this effect probably doesn't get better if you just keep on drinking – eventually no one will be able to understand you at all.